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Steve could ask him for anything and Tony would move mountains and stars to get it for Steve. Tony was that far gone for the guy with the sky-blue eyes and sweet, shy smile. They’d only been dating a few months, but Tony would buy him the moon.
The thing was that Steve didn’t ask for much. He asked for better insole support in his boots and fancy erasers for the Avengers office supplies. So when Steve dropped by the workshop, Tony expected him to ask about an updated tablet – Steve’s recent model had been a victim of their recent fight with the Wrecking Crew.
Steve shifted back and forth on his feet and glanced to the side. Tony thought it was absolutely adorable how shy Steve got when he was about to ask for a favor. “Um, Tony, I was wondering if I could ask –”
Tony pushed back his googles, already calculating what type of tablet he’d be getting for Steve. “Sure, Cap, what you do want?”
“Can you buy me a plane?”
Tony blinked a couple of times while his traitor brain immediately prompted several ideas about what exact plane to get Steve. It’d have to be durable at least, not exactly quinjet-durable, but it would have to be roomy for Steve’s frame. A Cessna would be a good starter plane, and he should buy a used one, but it’s Steve, he deserves the best, so maybe a new plane, something custom –
Steve pulled a folded, torn sheet out of his jeans pocket. “I wouldn’t usually ask, but someone at SHIELD mentioned seeing this on an auction site.” He pushed the page over to Tony.
Tony unfolded the page torn from an auction catalog and saw the listing and huge photo for a WWII-era plane with spectacular nose art of a very curvy woman nearly busting out of her scanty Army uniform while waving a flag. He looked up at Steve quizzically.
“It’s a P-5 C Mustang – it’s probably way too much money – but I knew that plane back –”
Awww, shit. That made things tricky – Steve didn’t have much of anything of his pre-ice life, so Tony couldn’t really say no. Even if the thing was a plane. Tony looked at the picture again. It’s be easier if Steve wanted a helmet or book or something like that. He could see why Steve would have picked out the plane – anyone would recognize that plane once they saw it. The cost was higher than the fancy pencil erasers Steve loved, but Steve wouldn’t have asked if it didn’t mean something.
“I know a guy,” Tony replied. “I’ll let you know how it goes. It’s an auction, so no guarantees – I’ll try my best, but things can get weird.”
Steve brightened up. “Doing your best is the best anyone can ask for.”
~~~~~
“TONAAYYYYY, it’s been a long long time,” Vinnie said on the phone. “Whaddo you want now, some new Captain America war bond poster?”
Despite talking like a New Jersey used-car salesman and dressing like he lived on the Jersey shore all summer long, Vinnie Mazzeo was one of the best dealers in Captain America collectibles that Tony had ever worked with. Vinnie had a knack for finding the rarest stuff – he’d been the source of the field radio from one of the most famous Captain America pictures. It was the picture where Cap was talking to Eisenhower about D-Day — the picture everyone used in histories and documentaries on Captain America. Steve tolerated it because the picture wasn’t entirely staged. Tony was lending the radio to the Smithsonian right now, not wanting to risk damage if the mansion was attacked again by Ultron. Or the Wrecking Crew. Or the Masters of Evil. Or – okay, the Avengers had too many enemies.
“Hey, I’ve got a line on this plane – Sotheby’s auction in a month – and I’m interested.”
“Huh. Tell me more.”
Tony could hear rapid tapping on the other side of the phone as he gave the auction name and lot number for the plane. Then Vinnie whistled long and low. “Yeah, that’s a beauty of a plane, Tony. What’s the story here?”
“Long story.” As in his inability to stop himself from buying anything for the guy he’d loved since they met. No one needed those details.
“So, Tony buddy, usually I’d be glad to snag it for you, but no can do this time.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah – there’s two groups raising money to buy this thing for a museum. It should go either to that museum in New Orleans or the Wright-Patterson place. I mean, we could outbid them, but you’d be the bad guy here.”
“What’s the deal with this plane?”
“Impeccable provenance – it’s being sold by the family of the guy who flew it in Europe – somehow the original pilot got his hands on it as soon as the government surplussed the plane. It’s in great condition, minimal restoration. But it’s the nose art really. Do you see that hottie there?”
“Can’t miss her.”
“It’s been attributed to this artist everyone called Rembrandt – we don’t know who he was. But he was one of the great nose art artists of the war – amazing pieces. We know about 10 planes he painted – we have pictures of ‘em, but 6 planes were destroyed, 2 pieces were removed from the planes and are owned by private collectors, 2 extant planes – one in a museum in England and this one.”
Tony almost sighed. He could connect the dots and given Steve’s caginess about the plane, he could reasonably guess who Rembrandt was. What the hell did Steve not do back in WWII?
“Like – all we know about the artist are references in letters and one report.”
“Right.” Because Rembrandt was an Army private who moonlighted as Captain America when he wasn’t painting planes.
Vinnie was right about Tony needing to back off of this one. As much as he would love to buy the plane for Steve, he knew that they would both be happier with the plane in a museum than being stored on a Stark property. “So can you arrange a viewing of the plane for me and a friend? Just to check it out.”
“Can do. I’ll get working on that with, um, Bambi?”
“Yeah, Bambi keeps the calendar.”
“Great. Hey – is your guest that guy you’ve been hanging with – dresses in the flag?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ve got some stuff that could use some authenticating. I’ll even throw in dinner at a good place.”
Steve had met Vinnie before and liked the guy. Dinner would be fun. “You’ve got a deal. Which group are you helping?”
“New Orleans.”
Vinnie always had an angle. “I’ll contribute to the effort – whatever it takes to win the auction.”
~~~~~
Tony had borrowed a Cessna to fly Steve down to see the plane, currently the star of an upcoming air show in Virginia Beach. Steve liked this. Just him and Tony, flying down in a plane that wasn’t a quinjet and not on Avengers business.
“Can’t tell me I don’t know how to show you a good time,” Tony joked as he started up the plane.
Steve smiled back at him. “Beats fighting Kang.” They barely had any time for just them, and Tony had carved out a nice long weekend before they had to head back to New York. They had a hotel room overlooking the ocean and all the privacy they could want. It felt like a precious gift to have even this small amount of Tony’s time all to himself.
They had a private viewing of the plane before the air show. Steve could see the plane as they left the hangar and smiled. It looked just like when he last saw it at the East Rentham Airfield, Norfolk, back in ‘44. Tony’s friend Vinnie was already standing near the plane.
“Heyy, Tony,” Vinnie said as he shook Tony’s hand. “Captain Rogers,” he said more formally, turning to Steve to shake his hand. “Sure is a beauty,” Vinnie said as he looked up at the plane. “Bring back memories?”
“Sure does,” Steve replied. The feeling of being back on that air base flooded over him.
“How did you hear about the plane, Cap?” Vinnie asked.
“Collector at SHIELD. He was talking about it at lunch,” Steve said. The collector was a SHIELD agent he tended to avoid at all costs because the man collected all types of WWII memorabilia and was a re-enactor. Usually Steve couldn’t deal with the guy. But sometimes people were unavoidable and sometimes Steve’s unfailing politeness betrayed him.
Vinnie flipped over a page in the packet he had in his hand. “Flown by Bob Taylor from Gulfport, Mississippi –”
Steve knew the story and how it all started.
He had signed up to fight Nazis, and later HYDRA, not to paint planes. But if he was Private Rogers out of the uniform, Bucky was also Private Barnes. And while Private Rogers was going for being the best potato peeler in the Army, Private Barnes was going for the Army’s best grifter.
Bucky always had a great trade in chocolate bars going all the way back to Lehigh – he started because he liked having a reliable supply of candy. And his trading empire had just grown from there when they were deployed to England. He started with chocolate bars then moved on to cigarettes. Then it was bits of equipment, weekend passes, books and comics, newsreels. Bucky was the guy that people referred to when they mentioned that they knew a guy.
The first time Bucky got nailed for his black-market trading, Bucky said to the MP that Steve was an artist. The offer was for Steve to paint some nose art and they’d forget about Bucky.
“Once. This is only going to happen once,” Steve snarled at Bucky when Bucky sheepishly showed up with lunch.
“She sure looks patriotic, Steve,” Bucky said.
The pin-up was a girl in shorts, high heels and a strategically placed American flag. “It’s what the pilot wants,” Steve said.
“He’s getting the best.”
Steve meant it when he said this was happening once and only once. Except now Bucky had a get-out-of-jail-free card in his back pocket to be used in case of emergency. He could get a discerning pilot the elusive “Rembrandt” when offering a trade to the higher-ups to stay out of the pokey.
He discovered this fascinating fact when Bucky was caught picking through a shipment of those armed forces paperback books. He was skimming off the most popular books as part of his latest scheme.
Steve was sent to decorate another plane.
“God, Steve, it’s not like I’m promising people handjobs for stuff,” Bucky said when he noticed how grumpy Steve was.
Bucky really, really pushed his luck too far in the September of ‘44. They’d been given a few days off in England before being sent back to France with the Invaders. Steve knew Bucky had been working his usual black-market trades, if only because Bucky hadn’t been complaining about the lack of candy for once. The Howlies were there as well, undergoing training for the usual classified mission.
And that was just a powder keg waiting to explode.
Bucky, Dino and Izzy had gotten tangled up in one of Bucky’s many schemes. Except this one involved jacking a brand-new ice cream machine fresh from the US and destined for a field kitchen in Sicily. Bucky had promised to divert it to the paratrooper training camp instead, in return for two of their brand-new jeeps. Dino and Izzy were going to trade the jeeps for better guns and all the ammo.
It was too ambitious and the whole scheme fell apart very quickly, especially given that the depot guards were quick to pick up on hinky stuff. Fury busted Dino and Izzy out, but Bucky was left to twist in the wind. Philips had to intervene with the base commander to save him, but at the cost of Steve painting nose art on five planes.
“It’s either that or Bucky gets court-martialed,” Philips testily told Steve over the phone.
“I’m waiting for orders – what happens when I can’t finish five planes?”
“The commander will have to wait.”
Steve cottoned on quickly to what Philips had actually negotiated. He’d do planes until Philips ordered him into the field. Thank god Bucky was keeping his head down and out of anyone important’s sight. He’d even avoided Steve, knowing that Steve had been unhappy with the deal. As part of the deal they were sent to East Rentham.
The thing was that Steve barely had started as a working artist when he got into Project Rebirth. He had one year of art college under his belt, but that didn’t explain why he was highly sought after for his artwork. The commander had been insistent on nailing Bucky to the wall until Philips mentioned that Steve was the mysterious Rembrandt.
Bucky, of course, insisted that Steve’s art was something special. Then again, Bucky tended to be Steve’s biggest fan.
So Steve pulled out his notebook, made some sketches to show his pilots and located paint. The first guy showed up, acted like he was too good to talk to someone like Steve, like an artist couldn’t be a real fighter or something, and demanded Steve’s best art. Steve listened as the guy asked for everything and the kitchen sink for his plane – practically an entire chorus line of girls along the nose. He told the guy he’d work on it, and as soon as he saw the back of him, Steve wrote down standard issue nose art.
But then Lieutenant Bob Taylor arrived on the airfield with an sweet southern accent from Gulfport, Mississippi and a radiant cocky smile that hit Steve in all the wrong places. Or all the right ones, depending on one’s point of view. Steve steeled himself to deal with another asshole considering how the past couple of days had gone. “What were you interested in?” he asked.
Bob laughed. “Anything really.” He was spectacularly good looking when he laughed. Steve’s heart fluttered.
“I have to start somewhere.”
“Awww, all right, nice girl, good legs, blonde, you know –”
Steve knew all right. He started sketching as soon as Bob told him what he wanted. Curvy and blonde, like the donut dolly that had just arrived from Charleston and given Steve a few donuts that morning with a bright good-morning greeting. Steve added in a flag as a background to the saluting pin-up.
Bob whistled long. “That’s amazing.”
Steve smiled at the pin-up. “Thanks. Give me an afternoon to start and we can change as needed.”
Turned out that Bob was grateful for Steve’s work. He plied Steve with coffee, made baseball jokes as he rattled off box scores from a two-months-old newspaper, and talked about pilot training. Steve liked Bob. Nice guy, smart, loved flying, all wrapped up in a package with sparkling eyes and a nice set of shoulders. Maybe it’d be too much to hope that Bob might be in the same frame of mind as Steve.
The next morning, Steve wrapped up the pin-up. He really hoped that Bob liked it. “What do you think?” he asked as he waved at the painting drying in the sharp, cool September air.
Bob stood close to Steve. “Wow. I’ve never seen anything that good.”
“You’re being too nice –” Steve could pick out a few flaws – he had to work faster than he preferred to finish because he’d heard a rumor that he and Bucky were shipping out soon.
Then Bob dropped his voice lower, not quite a whisper and only for Steve’s ears. “That’s not the only amazing piece of art here.”
Steve grinned and nodded knowingly at Bob. He had been down this road before. But they weren’t in one of those bars that Steve knew about back in New York or in a dark alley way or any of the usual places. “Thanks for the compliment.” He shot a smile over at Bob and gave him a wink as he gave him a lookover.
Bob put a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Let me buy you lunch at the canteen.”
They sat at a table in the busy canteen tent and talked about Gulfport and New York. This was different for Steve. He was spending time with a cute guy, and it wasn’t a lead-up to a back-alley fling. It felt like an actual thing leading to a date. Not that it ever could be, but the feeling was the same.
But there was a war going on and Steve glanced up to see one of Phillips’ aides lingering at the tent door. “Got to go,” Steve mumbled. “Looks like I’ve got orders.”
Bob nodded. “That’s how it goes. Look me up when you get back to base.”
They shook hands and parted. Steve didn’t come back to England until March of ‘45 and Bob was off in France by then. And when Steve came back home to America, Bob was long gone.
“Can I take a closer look?” Steve asked.
“Yeah, there’s a ladder around here somewhere,” Vinnie said.
Steve climbed up to look at the pin-up. She’d been retouched a few times, and there were a few stenciled little airplanes just under her feet. Damn it, he’d done a better job than he remembered. He wondered if he could do another pin-up again like her, but this time it would be Tony.
“Bring back memories?” Tony shouted up at him.
“Yeah, just like I left her back in ‘44,” Steve said with pride. He climbed down the ladder and looked back up the plane. “Can’t believe the plane survived.”
Tony said, “Sounds like there’s a story there.”
“I can tell you later. All Bucky’s fault to begin with –”
“Jesus Christ,” Vinnie swore as he clocked what Steve was saying. “Rembrandt, right?”
Steve shrugged. “Draw one picture and then everyone calls you Rembrandt.”
“Riigghht.” Vinnie ran a hand through his hair. “Great. Love being part of a new historical discovery. We gotta keep this quiet until after the auction.”
“Too late,” Tony said as he pointed to the group approaching them rapidly.
“Shit. It’s the auctioneers, museum reps and the family,” Vinnie said. “Do you think that they heard you?”
“Why – what’s wrong?” Steve asked confused.
Tony replied, “Apparently, no one knew until a minute ago who Rembrandt was – you know the guy who painted the nose art.”
“Oh – I wonder why – they all knew it was me, Private Rogers, who –”
“Please,” Vinnie begged. He was in visible pain. “The price of this plane just tripled. We can fill people in afterwards –”
An older woman broke from the group and made a beeline to Steve. “Captain America?” she asked as she reached to shake Steve’s hand.
“Yes?” Steve replied.
“He knew,” the older blonde woman said triumphantly. “Grandpa was right.”
“I’m sorry - I’m not following,” Steve said politely.
“Oh, I’m sorry – I’m Anne Gamtso, Bob Taylor’s granddaughter,” Anne replied as she introduced herself. “He used to talk about this plane.” She looked up at the plane and smiled at the memories. “It saved his life a couple of times, you know, those kind of stories. He tried to look up you up after the war to thank you for the art.”
Or maybe for something else. Nice to know he had a type, Steve thought as he glanced over at Tony.
“Anyway, Grandpa always told us that he thought he’d met Captain America back in the war – all he ever said that he met you at an airfield in England. When the news came out about the true identity of Captain America, well – he was so pleased with himself that he was right.”
“I only knew Lieutenant Taylor for about a day, while I painted that for him,” Steve replied. Vinnie made a very distressed noise behind him.
The group of curators, museum officials and auctioneers looked at Steve in shock. Finally, Dave from the National World War II Museum – Steve had met him before – said, “Sounds like there’s more to this plane than we knew.”
“Yes, yes, there is,” Vinnie hissed.
~~~~~
“I thought you were going to give Vinnie a heart attack. Or he was going to kill you,” Tony said as they sat on the balcony of their hotel room.
Steve snorted. It was a beautiful night with the full moon shining down on the calm ocean. He sipped his beer and put an arm over Tony’s shoulders. Tony leaned into him and he kissed the top of Tony’s head. “I’ll apologize.”
“It’ll be fine. He’s just worried that we won’t be able to get the plane for the WWII museum – I’ll just donate all the money he needs. I’m more worried that we won’t be able to enjoy the air show with the historians pestering you.”
He sighed. “I can schedule some interviews – that’ll make them happy.”
“What’s the story?”
“Not much to it – Bucky got into trouble, we made an art trade.” Steve twirled his beer bottle between his fingers. “He hit on me, when I was working on the plane. Bob Taylor, that is.”
Tony jolted in surprise, even though he knew Steve’s past. Steve made it clear to various Avengers over the years that sex existed in the 40s. “Were you -”
Steve turned towards Tony. “I picked up what he was saying, but it was a busy base, no real privacy and I was antsy about my orders. Some downtime before we were sent back to France – Bob wanted to fly and I wanted to get to the German border. But the flirting was nice, not because we were at a bar or in an alley and we were there for only one reason, but because he wanted to spend time with me.” Steve smiled. “It was good to have that for a minute.”
Tony squeezed Steve’s free hand. “Sometimes I forget how different your life was.”
“At first I thought I had imagined it. I met a cute guy, thought he was great, but I don’t pick up on flirting.”
“Yeah, I know. I should start a support group for victims of your obliviousness – Hi, I’m Tony, I tried to flirt with Steve Rogers, it went badly. Tell me your stories.”
“Hey.”
Tony shot him an exasperated look. “I had to go the blunt route and say – Steve, I want in your pants.”
“I did not think you were serious.”
Tony laughed hard. “Okay, okay, maybe I should have said something after we recovered from a fight with psychic aliens.”
Steve smiled, then sobered. “When I found out about the auction, I looked Bob up – he did the usual stuff, came home, got married, had kids, came out at Pride Parade when he was 73 with his boyfriend.”
“So, that’s why you wanted the plane? To remember your almost-boyfriend?”
Steve shook his head. “No, I really like the art I did. One of the best pin–ups I ever did. I don’t have any art I did before ‘45.” He put down his bottle. “The plane’s better off in a museum.”
“To be honest, it’s not like we could hang it in the mansion over the mantelpiece.”
Steve laughed. “You could try though.”
“Mayyyyybe.”
~~~~~
Tony wrangled another free day for them so they could go to the auction. Vinnie squirmed like a cat on a hot tin roof when the lot with the plane was announced.
The auctioneer announced proudly, “Lot 15, the star of the show. P-5 C Mustang, impeccable condition, owned by the family of the pilot, Lieutenant Bob Taylor. The nose art was painted by the famous nose-art painter Rembrandt. We have recently learned that Rembrandt was US Army Captain Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America.”
The crowd gasped as Vinnie muttered a curse. He looked guiltily at Steve. “Sorry. I just want to get this plane.”
“No offense taken,” Steve replied.
Then the bidding started. Steve couldn’t quite follow at first – the bids were coming in fast and thick from the bidders in the room and from representatives at the bidding phone bank. Slowly, the bidders started to drop out, until it was Vinnie versus a private collector. The bidder for the Wright-Patterson museum had stopped at $500,000. The current bid stood at one million.
“Are you sure, Tony?” Vinnie asked.
Tony raised his voice just enough to be heard around them. “You know I’m good for the money, Mazzeo.”
The other bidder paled, lowered his head in defeat and folded. Vinnie made the final bid. Then he high-fived Tony. “We did it, Tony.”
Tony grinned at Steve. “That was a rush.”
“Good to know the plane is going to a good home,” Steve replied. He saw Dave and the other museum people celebrating their win a few rows behind him.
“Gentlemen, Ladies and Others, we have our next lot, Lot 16,” the auctioneer called out.
~~~~~
During the flight home, Steve confessed to Tony, “I would have painted Bob’s plane if he’d asked, without being ordered to. I have a hard time saying no to a handsome, dark-haired man asking politely.”
“So if I asked nicely, would you paint something on the side of a quinjet?”
Steve squeezed Tony’s hand. “I’d do anything for you if you asked.” He thought about the pin-up of Tony he had already sketched out. “If it’s for a team quinjet, the pin-up would need to be more modest. But I’d do something special for you.”
“I would love that. One last pin-up from Rembrandt.”